The McCann 'Stalkers' - The ‘Stalker’s’ Story
The Trial
The Crime Desk
4.2 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 28 October 2025
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode Caroline and Claire have the words of Julia Wandelt as she gave evidence for the first time in her defence. She told the jury she wouldn’t have pursued the McCanns if they’d just done a DNA test. It’s also now emerged she was being advised on her media strategy by a publicist in the UK and a Psychic in the US.
The Trial series uses actors and some voices generated by AI. Their words are taken as verbatim from the official court transcript.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the trial UK, the McCann Stalkers. |
| 0:09.6 | I'm Caroline Cheatham. |
| 0:10.9 | And I'm Claire Doffin. |
| 0:12.4 | Today we've got the words of Julia Van Delt as she started to give evidence in her own defence. |
| 0:18.4 | She said she never meant to cause the McCann family distress, but she was |
| 0:22.5 | convinced she had been kidnapped as a child. She said she couldn't understand why the police |
| 0:27.2 | wouldn't listen to her and she only contacted the McCannes when all her other options had failed. |
| 0:33.7 | It also emerged in court that she was being helped by a media advisor who told her what to post on social media and when. |
| 0:40.9 | Yeah, the jury heard that a man called Sergeat Sinclair told her he was 90% certain that she was Madeline McCann. |
| 0:49.0 | Plus, we've been told that a psychic in America courted publicity for her on some of the biggest TV shows |
| 0:54.6 | but then took her passport |
| 0:56.1 | and refused to let her leave the country. |
| 0:58.7 | Welcome to episode 8, |
| 1:00.3 | The Stalker's Story. |
| 1:26.8 | Music Well, welcome back. It's October the 28th, and this trial is now in its fourth week. |
| 1:28.4 | And as we promised at the end of last week, the defence case has now started. And it started in dramatic fashion, really, with Julia |
| 1:33.8 | Van Delt in the witness box. Now, Claire, we know last week she wasn't very well and she wasn't |
| 1:39.5 | in court for some of the evidence, but she was back in today and yesterday and ready to give evidence. |
| 1:46.6 | Yes, that's right. She missed a few of the sessions last week. The jury were just told that she |
| 1:50.9 | wasn't well, but the judge felt the trial could continue without her, as it was mainly the police |
| 1:55.3 | interviews of Karen Sprague we were hearing about. But as you say, she's back in court this week |
| 2:00.3 | as her defence case started, |
... |
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